This enthusiastic tribute to the modern pop idol is sure to satisfy Swifties.
Taylor Swift’s passion awakens when she picks up her first guitar as a child in Pennsylvania.
When she learns that her favorite country music stars got their start in Nashville, Taylor takes a spring break trip to Tennessee, personally delivering CDs of her original music to record label offices. At home, she jumps at any chance to perform her favorite country hits, but her real joy comes from songwriting. After she moves to Nashville as a teen, a music executive sees her perform and gives her the opportunity to record her debut album. Though Taylor’s star is rising, her relationship with her mother keeps her grounded, and she takes time to treat her fans to special parties and surprises. The text is peppered with song references, cleverly mirroring the easter eggs that Taylor famously hides for fans. This gushing biography briefly references (and perhaps overstates) Taylor’s efforts to encourage voter registration and speak against racial injustice (“She’s a trailblazer!”) but fails to mention a yearslong battle to own the rights to her master recordings and help protect young artists entering the industry. Cheerful, painterly illustrations depict a smiling Taylor from childhood to the present, with careful considerations of hairstyles and clothing choices that align with the eras of her life. Some background characters represent a variety of skin tones and body shapes.
This enthusiastic tribute to the modern pop idol is sure to satisfy Swifties. (Picture-book biography. 5-9)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780593566718
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Golden Books/Random
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2024
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era.
The New Orleans school child who famously broke the color line in 1960 while surrounded by federal marshals describes the early days of her experience from a 6-year-old’s perspective.
Bridges told her tale to younger children in 2009’s Ruby Bridges Goes to School, but here the sensibility is more personal, and the sometimes-shocking historical photos have been replaced by uplifting painted scenes. “I didn’t find out what being ‘the first’ really meant until the day I arrived at this new school,” she writes. Unfrightened by the crowd of “screaming white people” that greets her at the school’s door (she thinks it’s like Mardi Gras) but surprised to find herself the only child in her classroom, and even the entire building, she gradually realizes the significance of her act as (in Smith’s illustration) she compares a small personal photo to the all-White class photos posted on a bulletin board and sees the difference. As she reflects on her new understanding, symbolic scenes first depict other dark-skinned children marching into classes in her wake to friendly greetings from lighter-skinned classmates (“School is just school,” she sensibly concludes, “and kids are just kids”) and finally an image of the bright-eyed icon posed next to a soaring bridge of reconciliation. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era. (author and illustrator notes, glossary) (Autobiographical picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-75388-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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